Our Visit to Kansas

Last week, Lydia and I flew out to KS to visit the family again. We usually don't go too long between visits. Lydia just grows so fast that I try and get her out there a couple times a year. Our first day there my mom had to work so Lyd's and I just hung out at home. Because we were in Kansas, Lydia missed her Joy school class so we had a little class of our own and learned about the letter F. Here is one of Lydia's pieces of artwork! While in KC, we did A LOT of shopping. We went to the Legends and Lydia just fell in love with the Old Navy dog. She didn't want to leave the store. She kept hugging him and telling him good bye when we had to leave. So cute. Lydia taking a rest with Grandma Frandsen. They had a really cool dinosaur cafe. We didn't eat there, we just took pics.
See, lots of shopping!
On Sunday the 29th we celebrated my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. We went to dinner at the Corner Cafe...my grandpa's favorite.
My cousin Scott, Stephanie and Rylan.
My brother David, Nora, Levi and Cabot.
My amazing grandparents RG and Betty Seymour cutting the cake.
My family is pretty small. This is almost everyone (and I mean everyone...aunts, cousins, etc...)
On Monday we went to the KC zoo. I'm not a huge zoo fan due to the tiny cages these poor animals are forced to live in. But I have to say, this zoo was AMAZING. I was blown away. I haven't been since I was a kid. If you've ever been to the Wildlife Animal Park in San Diego, it reminded me of that. They have a new section, Africa, and it's just a big open area where the animals run wild. Well, there are fences separating the cheetahs from the zebras, but they have huge areas to run around in. I LOVED it!!!!

The proud G-ma with all of her grand kids.
Cute little Cabot, my nephew.
Nora and Levi on the Carousel.
We also went to Auntie Becky and Uncle Bob's house. Lydia loved feeding Mattie and Mac doggie treats
and feeding the birdie crackers! I tried to get her on Great Uncle Bob's Harley but I think she was too scared to be that close to a motorcycle after the months of me telling her that cars (and other vehicles) can really hurt you if you get too close. Whoops! I guess I hammered that info a little too hard. If you didn't know, Lyd's is obsessed with motorcycles so I was excited for her to sit on one, but she just couldn't handle it :)
On Wednesday Great Aunt Becky took us to Oak Park Mall (my old stomping grounds in high school) to meet the Easter Bunny. As soon as she saw him, she went nuts and wanted to go up to him immediately. I thought she'd be a little leery (like with Santa) but she wasn't. When it was her turn to meet him, she walked up to his lap and sat right on it and started touching his face and giving him a high 5. I loved seeing that. She didn't want to leave him. When she got off his lap she waved good-bye until he was no longer in her line of sight. Some of you may know, her favorite toy is her bunny, so I think that helped her instant connection with the Easter Bunny.

Once again we had to ride yet another carousel and once again, she loved it.

When she got off, she found another one of her favorite things, cars to play on.
Here is our 4 generation picture. We take one every time we're together.
Here's Lyd's with her Great Auntie Becky. Thanks Auntie for all you did for us. We had a great time. Thanks for lunch and for making a lot of time for us this trip. You truly are the best and we love you.
The night before we left KS, we spent the evening with my brother and his fam. Lydia just loves babies and really enjoyed holding her little baby cousin Cabot.
And here's how Lydia looked most of the long car rides we went on. She loved to sleep, snuggling with her little Bunny! Thanks mom for all you did for us on this trip. You're the best and we love you so much. I couldn't ask for a better mama!!!

There was only one bad thing about this trip...here's the story:

My mom took us to the airport on April 2nd and we check in and the flight was 15 minutes behind schedule. Ok, that's fine. We said our good-bye's and we loaded on the plane after our short wait. The flight attendants did their whole safety talk and as we we're getting ready to pull away from the gate, the captain came on and said that he was sorry but Air Traffic Control stopped our flight and we're going to have a 3 1/2 hour wait.

WHAT???!!!!!

So they approve us to get back off the plane and they explain that ATC lets 150 planes land per hour at Dallas but they're only allowing 30 per hour due to VERY strong winds. I couldn't believe it. 3 1/2 hours? Are you kidding me? They, of course cancelled my connecting flight and the only flight that was left that day was a 9:30pm flight that flew into SLC at 11:30pm (at this point, it's about 11am...uh, that's a 12 hour flight day. No thanks). They had a 6pm flight out of Dallas but it was WAY overbooked. I just started crying because I was so stressed with Lydia. Most of you don't believe me, but she can really be a terror. At two points in our wait at the KC airport, she screamed bloody murder due to me not letting her do something she wanted; in front of everyone.

How embarrassing.

So after 2 1/2 hours and almost pulling my hair out because Lydia was being such a B.R.A.T. we loaded back on the plane. We landed in Dallas and just waited. I was put on the wait list for the 6pm flight but knew it was pretty much the longest shot ever! We got to Dallas at 3pm so we knew we had another 3 hour wait. UGGHHH! Fortunately, Lydia was pretty well behaved. At 5pm I went to the 6pm flight counter and looked at the standby list. There were literally 61 people on that list due to flights that were cancelled all over the country that were flying into Dallas. My hopes of getting on that flight were dashed.

At 530pm I noticed that my name wasn't on the standby list. Oh Crap!!! I went to the counter once again and asked why my name wasn't there. She looked Lyd's and I up and she said, "Well, I'm not sure how, but someone is looking out for you. You're confirmed on this flight." Oh my gosh!!! Thank Goodness. It's a miracle! I was put on the wait list in Kansas City but hadn't heard anything since, but I wasn't asking questions. I was just grateful I didn't have to wait 3 1/2 more hours for the 9:30 flight. So instead of landing in SLC at 4pm on my original flight, we flew into SLC at 9pm. That's a 5 hour wait in total. That made for a VERY long day. But I can't complain much. At least we made it home in one piece and Lydia was an angel on every flight she was one to and from KC. I just hope that never happens again.

When we got home from our trip Daddy surprised us by getting Lydia a trampoline. One of Lydia's most favorite things to do is jump on trampolines. We tried not to let her see it outside because she couldn't jump on it due to the horrible weather (rain and snow). But she was looking out the window the day after we got home and she got all excited, turned and looked at me and said, "That's MY trampoline!!!" She was so happy. So what do you do? Let her jump in the rain I guess. She loved every second of it. Thanks daddy for the great gift!